31 Aug
Last Minute Notice
Panama was my first combat action, but not my last. The ironic thing is notification. We had been locked down for 3 days following some PDF firing up a car of American officers and killing one. We thought they were about to lift the lockdown when we got called to the CO’s office at around 1830 on the 19th of December 1989. “We are going to war” was all he said. The next thing I knew, we were passing out the rifles and basic load. The attack commenced around midnight. Normally, the Army plans things ad nausium, but in this case, we executed our mission on the fly. It was a heck of a fireworks show.